


Tampion

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Objects in Space, Simon's a little shaken. Co-starring gunplay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tampion

**Author's Note:**

> I realized this was a kink I hadn't written yet and decided to remedy that. Next up: sounding! Maybe.

Keep his sister safe, find a way to make her well again, always remember that the Alliance could find them at any time.

 

The order of his life, neatly organized in Simon’s mind like bullet points on an outline, as if it could ever be that simple.

 

Bullets. He worries sometimes that his sister might take one to herself in the heat of the moment, get her hands on a gun again somehow and turn it on her own mutilated brain. He worries about learning to use one himself, out of necessity, and wishes the Hippocratic Oath had covered whether doing no harm still applied to those living with a fugitive status.

 

Deep down, he knows a part of him is still riding the thrill of it.

 

He’s worried about his breath catching and Mal catching on, those too-keen eyes honing in on the fact that while Simon doesn’t want to be caught, the little boy in him likes living an adventure, bohemian and transient, a dozen different worlds in as many weeks, fleeing from authority like pirates or outlaws. And of course he’d never compromise River’s safety or say he’d wished for the situation, but the irrational portion of his mind revels in living an illicit life.

 

_No touching guns._

 

Bullets in the bounty hunter’s gun, Jubal Early shooting him in the leg; he’s still healing, scar still fading. He takes his medicine and gives River hers, pushing the pegs back into place, like he can fix their minds as easily as Kaylee fixes an engine.

 

River reminds him that these things are never easy. He’s secretly terrified that she’ll hurt herself, but he tries not to dwell on it because she’ll pick up on his thoughts somehow, the way she always seems to when he has something he wants to hide.

 

“You caused a peck of trouble.”

 

It isn’t River who finally says it, but the captain. Arms folded, belt hanging low on his hips, Simon’s eyes riveted to the holster there. “Don’t know what we’re gonna do with you at this rate,” Mal continues.

 

He sounds more amused than anything, but the wide-eyed child in the back of Simon’s mind is sitting up straight with his hand in the air. Begging to be called on. His fingers twitch towards his leg as if he can still feel the bullet there. And Simon hears himself, soft-voiced, mild. “Pull it on me.” Daring him.

 

The captain frowns at him faintly and walks away.

 

The next time they talk, Mal says he’s gotten insubordinate—he hasn’t; he’s been more cautious than ever after the incident with Early—and that him being a fugitive is more than trouble enough, so some things are going to have to change. There’s a calculating look on his face that doesn’t sit well with Simon because he can’t quite categorize it. Simon glares and shakes him off and then it happens.

 

It’s out of the holster.

 

There’s a roaring in Simon’s head like the wind raking through a forest, making everything creak and sway and strain. Mal announcing it’s too much of a risk having them onboard anymore and could he please come along? Not a question. Glint of metal in one hand, Simon’s arm grasped hard in the other.

 

Simon’s lungs seem to solidify—no chance of drawing a breath, of taking a step, and then Mal _wrenches _him. He has to be pale and gaping, all the blood in his body having done an abrupt about-face, and now Mal’s telling him that he and River have been interfering with the crew’s jobs from the start.  That they’ve have to take on fewer than ever, accept lower rates than usual, stick to the Rim, all because of the Tams. “You’ll be gettin’ off before too long,” he hears distantly, and it makes his legs go numb. Mal tugs him out of the common room anyway.

 

When they reach Simon’s room, the door goes sliding open easily, and River’s making pastries with Wash and Kaylee in the galley since they got in some real flour, so she shouldn’t be coming by. He truly hopes not. Mal’s holding him tight and keeping the gun trained on him, the hot band of a forearm crushing against his chest, his voice harsh and low and gritty. One of Mal’s suspenders is grinding into his shoulder blade, the captain has a _piece _trained on him and Simon’s approximately three seconds away from coming in his pants.

 

He never used to be this person. He _can’t_ have been.

 

Cold metal to his temple, his throat, and Simon’s hardly able to stand it, can’t take much more before he’s gasping and shuddering where he’s pinned against Mal’s front, wishing he could collapse through the floor and spare himself the humiliation. Still fully clothed. But all the tension goes melting out of him as Mal holds him in place and pushes the barrel to his neck like a caress, like a mercy.

 

Simon makes a strangled little noise when he’s released.

 

“Don’t do it again,” Mal snaps, and strides out of the room, door sliding shut behind him and Simon an utter wreck. Not remotely sure what to make of the words.

 

It’s impossible to forget. The captain has to notice the way Simon can’t help glancing over, nervously wetting his lips and trying not to avert his eyes in embarrassment. Mal never says a thing to him about it.

 

The second time it happens, everyone else is asleep and Mal is on the bridge. Simon had been half-hoping to find him still awake. Follows him, dry-mouthed and quiet, and gets a glare for his troubles. Mal tells him he shouldn’t be out and Simon just shrugs. Mal’s isn’t even facing him when he adds that Simon should be doing his duty as a medic, as a brother, not aimlessly wandering around.

 

That hurts more because he’s almost positive Mal means it. Guilt is never far from the surface on either of those counts and Simon’s cursing in reply before he realizes it.

 

Searing into him. river-blue and unblinking—he’s suddenly the new center of the captain’s world and he stares right back as Mal moves closer, framed by the star-spattered blackness visible through the glass.

 

The captain has him open his mouth, which Simon isn’t expecting. His pulse kicks up when Mal traces the pistol over his chin, his bottom lip, and Simon has one hand splayed on the back of Wash’s chair, arm shaking from supporting himself as he waits for Mal to move the barrel _in_, skimming over his teeth until he can feel it on his tongue.

 

He never does, but Simon comes anyway, the ball of his hand shoved up between his legs, roughly working himself through the cloth. The emptiness of space is streaking by all around them and Simon’s too busy shaking to be scared.

 

At dinner a few nights later, Simon baits him, carefully. Offers a few protests when a possibility for their next contract is discussed, makes mention of possible Alliance presence in the area and the fact that he’s not entirely sure they should accept any work there.

 

“You keep actin’ up like this,” Mal says the third time, “I just may have to send Jayne to deal with you next time.”

 

“No,” Simon gasps automatically. He can’t tell if the captain is joking, but even the idea of exposing this side of himself to Jayne sends his stomach into knots. “You wouldn’t. You _can’t_.” For the first time, he tries to press himself against the captain, to convince him, to _feel_. Swapping touch for trust; it makes a bitterness rise in his throat. He never would have done that before. Would he?

 

“This isn’t about me,” Mal mutters, and pushes him away.

 

Simon thinks he understands. Mal gets the say as to what happens on his ship, and if he’s not actually invested in whatever this thing between them is, then it keeps things mostly uncomplicated. Simon wishes that weren’t the case; it would be less embarrassing for him if he weren’t the only one finding some sort of release in this, though Mal is still certainly giving him what he needs when he doesn’t have to. No obligation whatsoever for this sort of thing, for looking on impassively as Simon’s fumbling with the fastenings on his trousers and squirming into his hand from the feel of bronze over the pulse of his neck and narrowed eyes on his face.

 

Stepping out of line and needing to be disciplined, the way he so rarely was when he was younger. Mal calls him out for it every time, for wanting attention and adventure and not understanding how brutal the real world actually is—what it’s like to fight in a war, experience these things face-on, rather than patching up the wounds in a civilized hospital and taking in money.

 

“Y’know, Kaylee likes engines, I hear,” he informs Simon, sounding downright amiable for someone who’s got his mouth pressed up against another man’s ear and a hand shoving both of Simon’s over his head. “You two could have quite a discussion.”

 

It nearly makes Simon laugh. Kaylee can’t know how depraved he is. Liking a certain atmosphere and finding it sexually stimulating is one thing, but danger? That’s unhealthy.

 

Mal, never requesting reciprocation, always cool as the metal in his hand. Simon with his head ducked, panting, palms flat and clammy on the wall. Press of the barrel burning through his shirt at the small of his back, up his spine, and even as he’s struggling not to just push a hand down the front of his pants and _touch_ he’s thinking of the damage it would do: the spine being severed, the bright bloom of the exit wound through his chest, smear-spattering the wall like a fitfully flung vegetable.

 

What he would be, if they brought him back. Vegetative. All the weaves and grafts and medications the infirmary has to offer, not enough to make him recover fully, not enough to resuscitate and mend completely, leaving him free from responsibility and a burden to all, and what would happen to River then?

 

Thinking it makes him feel anxious and daring and Mal is saying things in his ear like, _give me one reason why I shouldn’t_, saying he should leave the ship quietly or he’ll leave it dead, calling him worthless even though they both know Simon isn’t.

 

“The warrant only calls for your sister to be alive, I believe, or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.”

 

Bronze of the pistol, heavy and glinting and coldcoldsorutting_cold_. Teeth catching on the inside of his cheek, heat spreading stickily inside his fist.

 

“You are one sick little boy, doc.”

 

He wants to say he isn’t a boy, but he can’t find the words. The first part isn’t to be disputed. He knows he’s sick. Doctors are always the worst patients, the hardest to cure.

 

It has to stop. Whatever kind of coping mechanism this is, it isn’t doing him any favors. Again, he throws himself into taking care of everyone’s needs but his own, as if by ignoring certain thoughts he’ll be able to make them waste away.

 

Again, Mal finds him. “Change of heart, hm?”

 

Simon’s not sure whether to thank him or tell him to go to hell, so he doesn’t say anything.

 

“How come?” Mal briskly steps into his quarters before Simon has a chance to get the door closed.

 

“Because my sister needs me,” he answers, like Mal’s an idiot for even bothering to ask. “I have to take care of her.”

 

“This ship needs you, too,” says Mal. Fingers under Simon’s chin, keeping his head tipped up to meet blue eyes that, surprisingly, aren’t filled with the annoyance he’d expected. “Don’t be forgetting that. Don’t get lost on the way.”****

 

There’s a quick whisper of heat covering his lips and the next thing Simon knows he’s on his knees because he just _can’t _keep looking Mal in the eye right now. Cheek pressed to the front of rough brown pants, then he’s drawing back to look solemnly up at the captain and turn his own question back in on him: “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”

 

Mal doesn’t.

 

He takes him in carefully, hopes to feel Mal’s fingers threading through his hair, but doesn’t. Too proud to say anything at first, but when he stops and Mal sighs from the loss, he’s emboldened by it enough to talk.

 

“I’d like it if you touched me.” He tries his very hardest to sound like it doesn’t matter.

 

And he starts again and this time Mal does. Warmth of fingers tentatively cradling his skull. Oh, _God._

 

More than Mal’s lips against his ear, Mal’s gun against his head, and his own body spasmingjerking until he spills over his hand with shame-filled eyes shut tight. Simon hums quietly, savoring the feel of flesh instead of metal, and finishes what he’s started. The gun belt is somewhere on the floor.

 

He stays there, flushed and silent, head bowed, long after Mal’s done his pants up.

 

This time, Mal doesn’t walk away.


End file.
